"Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement."--Florence Scovel Shinn

Yes, I have been struggling lately. Today I reminded myself that this is all relative, however, existing only in my mind. I have put myself here, and I can put myself in a better, more successful frame of mind. As I posted a couple of days ago, I had not painted for a few days, so I made myself DO something. The first painting below, Pedestrian with a Pink Umbrella was the first step. Then I rotated my point of view to paint the second version, A Change of Perspective. The lines became simpler, the image less literal. My third painting in this series is Avatar, and while it is connected to the other two, it is more cerebral and less physical in what it tries to capture.

Pedestrian with a Pink Umbrella

A Change of Perspective

Avatar

Theodore Roosevelt said, "Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

Today I am returning to my initial impulse. I am moving back toward the center of the umbrella, to the geometric support which will be be the inspiration for more abstraction.

And I close with this: "The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great."--Meister Eckhart